A note on structured pseudospectra. (Q2490718)

The \(\varepsilon\)-pseudospectrum of a complex matrix \(A\) is the set of all complex eigenvalues of all the matrices within \(\varepsilon\)-distance of \(A\). The structured \(\varepsilon\)-pseudospectrum of a structured matrix is defined analogously, taking only matrices of appropriate structure into account. In the present note the equality of \(\varepsilon\)-pseudospectrum and the structured \(\varepsilon\)-pseudospectrum is shown for the following structures of matrices: Toeplitz, circulant, Hankel and symmetric. This easily follows from previously known results on the subject. The equality however does not hold for Hermitian and skew-Hermitian matrices (it is only true when restricted to the real and imaginary line, respectively). The results are then generalized to pseudospectra of matrix polynomials with the above structures. At the end, a formula for structured pseudospectra of real matrix polynomials is given. The proofs are simple and straightforward.